D:Ream On Volume 1
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| D:Ream On Volume 1 | |||||
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| Studio album by D:Ream | |||||
| Released | October 18, 1993 | ||||
| Recorded | 1991 - 1993 Aosis Studios (recording) Roundhouse Studios (mixing in 'T' Sound) |
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| Genre | electronic pop rock synthpop dance soul ballad |
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| Length | 47:31 | ||||
| Label | Magnet Records / Warner Bros. Records | ||||
| Producer | D:Ream & Tom Frederikse for Pumphouse Sounds Inc. / FXU Management |
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| D:Ream chronology | |||||
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D:Ream On Volume 1 was the debut album by British pop rock, synthpop and dance band D:Ream, released in late 1993, by Magnet Records label, distributed by Warner Music major, and managed by FXU Management. The album made it to the Top 5 of the UK Albums Chart, getting exactly to Number 5. D:Ream was a ubiquitous group in the early 1990s, with their sound all over the radio and in the clubs. It's pretty standard technopop fare, but the songs on this album are quite varied: there's the soaring Take Me Away, the more intense I Like It, and the moody So Long Movin' On, while Things Can Only Get Better, which topped the British charts in early 1994, is quite inspiring and motivational, pervaded by positivity, typical of the new dance scene of the time; moreover, Glorious has a nice Latin sound, and Blame It On Me is soulful and moving. Nice electronic dancey tunes, but definitely not something that would make musical history, though, for some time, D:Ream was in fact hailed as the act that might actually re-introduce vocal and the song onto the dance floor, at the time almost exclusively dominated by instrumentals and samples.
Many singles were released from the album, actually 7, some of them re-issued more than once or twice. Those that came out before their Number 1 smash hit were minor hits (the debut single was a total flop, in fact) in Great Britain, whereas those that followed were all more or less big international hits, which got much airplay and plenty of chart success. The first release of U R The Best Thing stalled at Number 72 in the UK Top 75, in July 1992; the first release of Things Can Only Get Better went no higher than Number 24; the re-release of U R The Best Thing did far better than the original release, climbing up to Number 19; Unforgiven peaked at Number 29; the double A-side single Star - I Like It got to Number 26. Then, the re-release of Things Can Only Get Better became a Number 1 hit, and the music, so to say, commercially changed: the third release of U R The Best Thing finally peaked at Number 4; Take Me Away made it to the Top 20, reaching Number 18; and Blame It On Me, the last single to be released from the first album, got to Number 25.
Things Can Only Get Better was re-released for the third time, in 1997, getting to a respectable Number 19, after being adopted by the UK Labour Party, for the UK General Election of that year. The song would be included on D:Ream's first and only official singles collection, "The Best of D:Ream", that label and Peter Cunnah himself decided to issue, instead of the group's third studio album, "Leap of Faith", which was never so far released.
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
- Take Me Away - 3:42 (Peter Cunnah)
- U R The Best Thing - 6:00 (Peter Cunnah)
- Unforgiven - 4:21 (Peter Cunnah/Al Mackenzie)
- I Like It - 4:27 (Peter Cunnah)
- Glorious - 6:01 (Peter Cunnah/Al Mackenzie)
- So Long Movin' On - 5:10 (Peter Cunnah)
- Picture My World - 5:39 (Peter Cunnah)
- Blame It On Me - 3:43 (Peter Cunnah)
- Things Can Only Get Better - 4:14 (Peter Cunnah/Jamie Petrie)
- Star - 4:14 (Peter Cunnah)
[edit] Credits
[edit] Musicians
- Peter Cunnah: lead vocals and all instruments
- Al Mackenzie: additional keyboards #9
- Tom Frederikse: additional piano #9; Hammond organ #8
- Gary Meek: Hammond organ, piano #9
- Brian Cox: piano #10
- Wendon Davis: congas #10, 8
- Rain Shine: original piano #8
- Mark Roberts: additional drums #7
- Gaetan: additional programming #7, 6
- Gerry Ruddock: trumpet #6
[edit] Additional vocalists
- Liliana Chacian: voice, spoken in Portuguese #5
- Linda Duggan: background vocals #8, 4, 3, 1
- Jamie Petrie: background vocals #9, 8
- Donna Gardier: background vocals #7, 6
- Peter Crooner: background vocals #9
- Kathleen Pearson-Thomas: background vocals #9
- Dylis Duku: background vocals #9
- Delphi Newman: background vocals #9
- D'Borah Asher: background vocals #2
[edit] Production
[edit] Staff
- FXU: management
- Mark Beder: contacts & info
- Simon Fowler: photography
- An Artificially Sweetened Sleeve: sleeve
[edit] Release details
| Country | Date | Label | Format | Catalog |
| UK | 1993 | Magnet Records / Warner Music | CD | 4509-93371-2 |
[edit] External links and references
- www.d-ream.net: D:Ream's Official Website
- Discogs: D:Ream's detailed bio-discography with links to all their releases
- Discogs: D:Ream On Volume 1 album details, with links to all related performers
- EveryHit.com: UK Top 40 Database
- Paul Gambaccini, Tim Rice, Jonathan Rice (1995), British Hit Singles, Guinness Publishing
